I have a new desktop. I loaded iTunes. I am trying to add my iTunes folder (which I saved from my old computer) to the new one. I used the 'Add Folder to Library' option and directed it to the saved folder. When I open iTunes there is one 'Unknown Album' showing which contains all 57 albums. I have tried to sort by artist, title, year, but nothing changes. Should I have imported just the iTunes music file instead of the entire folder?
Any help would be appreciated.
The symptoms suggest the media is probably stored in .wav format which doesn't hold metadata. Your Unknown Album is likely by Unknown Artist, and the track names probably include leading digits. If you turn off the advanced preferences to Keep & Copy before adding to the library so that items either references tracks on the original paths, or at least doesn't change them, then a script called TagFromFilename can add the missing data back into the library. I'd recommend switching the format to Apple Lossless.
tt2
Silk,
If your music is in WAV format, the songs do not have tags and will not be properly labeled when they are added to a new library.
The best way to move a library is to copy the entire iTunes folder. This includes the library file and all the content.
Thanks for the replies. To ed2345 I did import the entire iTunes folder.
To turingtest2 - They are in WAV format. I will try your suggestion, and let you know.
Question - I chose the WAV format because it downloads the files with no compression. I listen to this music with loudspeakers so I wanted the best sound reproduction. As to your suggestion to use Apple Lossless format, what is the difference between it and WAV, and will I notice any difference in playback quality?
See Make a split library portable. If you backed up the whole iTunes folder, then replace the current iTunes folder with the one from the backup, instead of importing, and all should be as it was before.
Apple Lossless is a lossless format, but it makes smaller files that can carry all of the metadata that wav cannot. Conversion from one lossless format to another is safe with no loss of fidelity. See ConvertFormat for a script that can help with that.
tt2
Problem with new PC
